SO I work in a school and just had this vision of Bitty becoming a middle school guidance counselor completely by accident.
Bitty heard that the local middle school was looking for a new home ec teacher
Jack encouraged him to go for it - after all, he did teach many a hapless hockey bro how to feed themself after graduation.
He didn’t have any more solid plans than that anyway, so he sent in his application, along with links to a few of his “I teach ____ to make _____” videos. (His personal favorite is where he showed all three frogs how to bake a birthday cake for Farmer.)
For reasons he can not understand, the school wants to have him in for an interview
He shows up armed with a bribery/test pie, all ready to talk about simple cooking and how he could teach a feral dog how to make itself an omelette.
Instead, he walks into the conference room to find the teacher who was supposed to be interviewing him mid-nervous breakdown.
She has so much grading to do, she just found out that because of budget cuts, her classes are going to be even bigger next year, and on top of it all, she got in a fight with her boyfriend because she never has time for him.
Bitty briefly wonders what the fuck he’s doing getting involved in public education.
But because he’s a good person, he just hears her out and sets a piece of pie in front of her, and offers a hug, only if it’ll help.
He thinks he might have a bruised rib.
After she gets it together, their time is almost up, but she asks him a few questions, jots some notes (”delicious pie!” “so nice!!!” “ADORABLE” “good hugs”) and says goodbye.
Bitty goes home and tells Jack about the interview and then says he probably didn’t get it because she hardly got any real information about him and she’s probably so embarrassed she wouldn’t want to work with him anyway.
They are both still wrong.
One of the last minute budget cuts was the home ec position, but the woman who interviewed him recommended he be brought on for the guidance opening since he gave her such good advice and made her feel a million times better.
Bitty almost turns down the offer because he doesn’t think he’d be any good at it. He was such a lousy student himself and still doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life - how could he possibly help kids figure that out?
Jack argues that Bitty is great at helping people figure out what they want because he’s not a great student. It makes him more open to different paths and gives him a way to relate to kids that are struggling.
In the end, he accepts because he has no other plans and figures if he’s so terrible at it, they won’t renew his contract anyway and he’ll just go back to square one.
By Christmas break, he’s invested wholeheartedly and never wants to leave.
